It is just surprisingly true that the principle of Pareto is applicable in many use cases in our lives. As a Process Engineer when I started my journey in the heavy industries years ago, I became introduced with this idea that 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes ( vital few ), engineers coined the term as 80/20 rule.
Later I grew mature in the industry, figured out that this is so true in fixing the major issues of the operations. Going deeper on a subject that I like to learn is an integral part of my learning habit. I later learnt how and who introduced this Pareto Principle, who improvised this ( Mr. Juran, rest in peace ) and so on and so forth.
So, Joseph M. Juran was an engineer, a lifelong educator and evangelist in the domain of quality improvement and management. It is an astonishing fact that, when Mr. Juran started his management consultancy in the heart of the USA, he emphasized that “ the training begins with the top and middle management” to make an impactful change. I realize that everyday now without buy-in by top and middle management, no changes will ever occur. Anyways, the idea that top and middle management needed training was not very warmly welcomed in the USA back in that time ( early 1950’s ). But Japanese manufacturers at that time got intrigued by this and embraced that principle and in fact they welcomed Mr. Juran to visit Japan and train their Industry Leaders and Professionals. That belief paid off to the Japanese Industry, in less than 20 years, by 1970s, Japanese products began to be seen as the top-notch products in quality. History says, at that time, in the 1980’s, USA fall in crisis and was beaten up badly by the Japanese products in the global scale.
My takeaway point is, solving an ongoing struggle actually does not require any miracle or hyper level of prowess, it requires some rational minds who checks out their ego on the side and acknowledges the concerns, believes in data or evidence present, buys in and works out based on the 80/20 principle. The founder of the 80/20 principle, Mr. Pareto’s principle is known as “ the vital few and the trivial many” which in later years Mr. Juran preferred to coin as “ the vital few and the useful many” to signal that the remaining 80% of the causes also should not be ignored.
I only can hope that this simple principle is in effect in our lives – personal to professional. Amen !